


Haven

by Kissa



Category: Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Birth, Bonus Chapter, F/M, New World, Post-Apocalypse, Smut, Triplets, alternative endings, brief description of sex, chris evans - Freeform, curtis everett - Freeform, sketchy description of birth, snowpiercer - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 05:00:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 6,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10455600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissa/pseuds/Kissa
Summary: Curtis finds the life he always wanted and deserved, after surviving the hell on Wilford's train.





	1. The Two Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Izzy (the OFC) is just a regular woman who likes chocolate more than she likes working out, before anyone accuses me of fetishizing her weight. She casually jokes about her size with her friend and feels fairly self-conscious of her body, as a single woman in a post-apocalytic world.

“How was yesterday?” The older woman asks, sitting next to the smaller redhead. She is carrying two cups of coffee and puts one in front of her friend. “I’m so happy I didn’t have to work. Rick and I sent the legion of darkness to the grandparents’ place and he doggy fucked me all through a full episode of Battlestar Galactica, so we could both watch. I was beginning to forget what that dack looks like. I hadn’t fucked my man in two days!”    
  
“Do you also seek out starving people and start eating in front of them? Because Shawna, I love you and you’re my friend, but sometimes you really get off on rubbing it in.”    
  
“Whose fault is it that none of the men lining up to date you are good enough for your princess ass? It won’t be like this forever. You’re getting older and our work doesn’t come with opportunities to meet new guys. All your patients are dangerous or severely affected.” Shawna says. “What you’re looking for doesn’t exist. Or, if he does, he’s married to someone who did anal on the first date.”    
  


“Yeah, because blaming it on me sure helps. What sort of therapist are you?”   
  
“A child therapist! Those fuckers are way less complicated.” Shawna said, noticing too late that her friend was upset.  “Izzy, wait. I’m a dick. I didn’t realise it got to you so much.”   
  
“Of course it does, Shawna! You get twice as much free time as I do because you have kids, and then you come and remind me how shit you think I am.”     
  
“Oh for fuck’s sake you selfish bitch, can’t I tell you what I did over the weekend without you going off on a butthurt rant about the sex you’re not getting?”   
  
“Ladies, if you would be so kind to put your showdown on hold and meet me in the conference room.” Dr. Banks says. She is the slightly older director of the research and clinic facility. “We have an emergency.”   
  
In their vast conference room, two men in suits introduce themselves as agents working for the Interpol and present their case.    



	2. Last day on the train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curtis gets off the train - but what awaits next?

Though Wilford has told them that the engine will never stop, and that if it did stop, they would all die, one day the train slows down to a halt and panic erupts all through it. 

Some kill themselves in despair. There is a horrible fight breaking out at the front as the sedated privileged elites are overtaken by the madness Wilford has been feeding them. They kill one another effectively, since they have all the guns and all the means to cause the most harm. 

At some point, Curtis himself gets crushed to the floor under several other bodies. He isn’t badly injured, but he hasn’t eaten in days and he is too weak to fight. 

His last thought as he blacks out is for Edgar.


	3. Out of the wreckage and into ruin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curtis is in a coma at a research facility

“Can you hear me? Do you understand English?” Izzy asks. She’s been assigned five passengers from the train and four of them died. She’s down to one, who’s been lying catatonic in a bed, neither dead nor living, just waiting for some mysterious trigger. 

Shawna has her hands full with the babies they rescued from the train from their mothers’ cold stiff hands. 

The CW-7 project really did fail, and it affected the whole planet. People died in most places. But there are a few cities where life continued. People put warm clothes on and rescued everything they could. Animals in zoos followed the humans indoors, terrified and shivering. Scientists all over the world came together and found a solution, but not before most of humanity died. 

Nature bounced back after a few years. Life went on, shakily but it did. 

The only thing suspended out of time and immune to the changes was the Snowpiercer Project. There were messages that were definitely read by Wilford. But for some reason, the eccentric trillionaire did not stop his train and he did not leave his immense compound. 

No one had suspected what was on that train. Until they got the satellites working again and one did a thermal imaging scan of the train. 

There have always been men like Wilford. Brainwashing a bunch of followers into isolating themselves away from the rest of the world, with the promise of a new life which usually only meant a horrific death. One would think that after the Jonestown Massacre, people would know not to drink the kool-aid.

But what they found on the train was unspeakable. It went over every boundary of humanity, of empathy. An international court found Wilford and his enforcers guilty of genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. They all await execution in a special prison facility. 

The survivors are dropping like flies. It’s a shocking and heartbreaking phenomenon to watch. These people have been enduring through so much with so much dignity and stoicism, only to perish as soon as they were shown the part of the world that did not suffer on board the hellish train. 

Izzy understands why that is and her heart weeps. Loss of hope and seeing that one’s struggle and sacrifice were in vain instantly corrodes any resilience a person might have. 

Of course, people are also dying from horrible diseases left untreated, infected wounds and frostbite. 

Except for her one patient, the filthy bastard. He was alright, except for some cuts and bruises and the nurses who tended to him when he arrived to the clinic now have stories to tell for a lifetime. They dubbed him Smelly Cat because he wasn’t conscious and no one knew him, but he stank to high heavens. There was once a song called that. 

They scrubbed at him for days, and while the grime came off easily, the smell lingered for a lot longer. 

Then the nurses started talking about a whole other class of details. Underneath all the filth, the man is hot, they say. He has clear blue eyes, big, soft lips and an above average penis, they reported. Oh and a lame arm, but they can fix that later. If he ever wakes up. 

“Where am I?” The man speaks, in a voice hoarse with lack of use and dehydration. 

Izzy rushes by his side and pours him a glass of water. 

“You are at a clinic in Sweden. You were rescued from the Snowpiercer. My name is Izzy. Can you tell me yours?” 

The man blinks, frowns, then sighs and reins tears in. 

“Curtis. Curtis Everett.”


	4. Wide Awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curtis wakes from the coma and his therapist is not in a hurry to ask about the train. Also, makeover.

Curtis doesn’t sleep much once he comes back. When he sleeps, he wakes up screaming or crying. 

Izzy is stuck at the clinic, monitoring him and being there when he wakes. She hasn’t slept in a few days either, and she would give a lot of things to be able to. 

Curtis is exhausted, his body wants to rest and recharge, but his mind won’t let it. Thick, sticky tears ooze down his cheeks from exhaustion, no matter how much water he drinks. 

Izzy is cautious. She doesn’t pressure him to open up for now. At this point in time, Curtis seems more comfortable asking about the world. About her. 

He wants to know how people survived the worst of the cold. How everyone found one another and came together to rescue what could be rescued. He asks to see the other survivors and it’s just Tanya and Timmy, Nam and Yona. The reunion is painful and jarring, but it helps Curtis get some sort of closure. The others are happy to see to their own recovery.

He has a hard time making sense of his life in the absence of his goal on the train. He doesn’t know how to deal with the nightmares; doesn’t know he can live without them. 

He asks to be allowed in the therapist lounge, where there is a TV. Huddled on one half of the two-seat sofa there, he finally falls asleep with Izzy watching over him. Eventually, she falls asleep too, her head on his shoulder. 

Shawna walks through the lounge, sees them and smiles, taking out her smartphone, snapping a pic and going on her merry way. 

They sleep like kittens until Curtis needs to pee and he wakes, at first feeling like he is back on the train because of the weight of a sleepy Izzy pressing slightly into him, but then he realises the train is no more. He can tell first by the smell, then by opening his eyes and seeing the neutrally-toned furniture and walls of the lounge and the TV. 

This is a strange situation. His doctor looks even less intimidating while asleep and Curtis’ first instinct is to run away, burst out the doors and never stop running. But he catches the beginning of his downward spiral into panic and he stifles it. He is not ready to be on his own out in the world. He needs help and he knows it. 

So he goes to the bathroom and relieves himself, washing his hands after. Above the sink, the entire wall is a mirror and Curtis is startled by how changed his features are. They are still angular and sharp, as though carved out of quartz, but he looks younger, more rested, and the dark shadows under his eyes are receding. The scars of his healed face wounds are turning white. His beard could use a trim. The man staring from the mirror looks youthful and apprehensive still, but his eyes are calm and he can even lift a corner of his mouth in a shy, awkward smile. 

He has more questions for his therapist, but she still sleeps when he returns to the lounge. Curtis is at a loss, not knowing what to do. Should he wake her up? Carry her to her office? 

His dilemma is solved when Shawna walks in, looking for something and stopping in her tracks when she sees Curtis towering over her friend who is sleeping and defenseless. To her, it looks like a menacing situation until she makes eye contact with Curtis and sees the concern in his eyes. 

She solves his dilemma by going to Izzy and tickling her friend awake. 

“Come on, sleepyhead, your patient needs you.” She says and goes on to get what she came for, leaving Izzy to sort out her sleep-mussed hair and face Curtis. 

“Did you need me?” She asks him. 

“No, I mean not now. Do you think I can get a knife to cut my beard and hair?” 

“A knife? We have less dangerous tools for that, Curtis. And of course. We can go to the barbershop and you can tell the barber to style you however you like. Would you like the barber to be a man or a woman?” 

“I don’t know… does it make a difference?” Curtis asks, taking his time thinking about it. “I think I would feel safer if a lady did it.”

Normally it would not matter, since both men and women can learn to be qualified barbers, but Izzy asked because Curtis doesn’t come from a normal life and for a long time his world was a very violent place. 

But the fact that he wants to change his looks is massive progress. It means he started to care what happens to him and is not indifferent to how his life goes on. 

 

She makes a couple of phone calls and, while the barber offered to come to the hospital for the job, Izzy feels that Curtis is well enough to leave the hospital, accompanied by her. This way he can see more of the world and get used to it sooner. 

The barbershop is small and there are only two other customer, a mother with her seven year old boy and a young man who is getting a beard and moustache trim and restyle. The little boy is done first and he and his mother leave soon after Curtis and Izzy arrive. 

The barber lady is in her forties, cute and welcoming and she listens to Curtis carefully, even showing him pictures from magazines. After a short conversation with Izzy, she also gets her tools and lays them out in front of Curtis, showing him the combs, brushes, scissors and electrical trimmer and how they work before using them on him. 

She starts cutting his hair with practiced, quick moves and Curtis relaxes soon. Izzy gets a glass of water and sits nearby, leafing through a magazine. 

When she looks up next, her mouth goes dry even as she downs her glass. 

From under the unruly scruff and the matted beard, there’s a beautiful man emerging. And while her imagination pieced together what he would look like with a bit of grooming, the real thing is stunning and breathtaking. Curtis is not a handsome man; he’s downright beautiful and Izzy feels herself becoming lightheaded and she stares. 

When Curtis catches her, she sighs sadly. If this becomes one of those situations where she develops feelings, it will all go downhill fast, because then she will have a conflict of interests and she will have to step down as his therapist. 

And she doesn’t want that. She wants Curtis to recover and be able to go back into the world and live a normal life, or, granted, whatever normal can still mean for him. 

The barber is also amazed by the transformation and she gives Curtis a free head massage just for the prolonged pleasure of touching him some more. She ends it by rubbing a fragrant oil in her palms and using it to smooth Curtis’ already perfectly groomed hair and beard. 

Curtis himself is feeling so good. Only a tenth of the dopamine that today’s treatment released in his system is enough to get him high. For the first time in two decades, nothing hurts. He’s warm, clean, his belly is full of good, real food and there are friendly women tending to him and treating him like a prince. He’s never had that, even before the train. 

He says thank you and feels very inadequate when he sees Izzy use her card to pay. 

“Please don’t worry, Curtis. It was my pleasure. You look amazing. How do you feel?” She asks. 

“I feel very light. And… changed. Thank you.” He repeats politely. The truth is he doesn’t feel anything. Yet. It will all come crashing in late at night, when he lies in bed all alone, staring at the dark ceiling the way he used to on the train. 

“Curtis? Is there something you want to get off your chest?” She asks. 

If only women were less perceptive sometimes. Curtis wishes she would stop treating him like the fragile egg of an extinct bird. And he wishes she would ask the questions she is most likely dying to ask. Because he’s ready to talk; has been for a long time. 

He asks to use the facilities and the barber shows him where they are, behind a decorative panel at the back. 

When he returns, he stops behind the panel, listening. The two women are talking about him. 

“Wow, he is so hot. How did you let your man get so rough-looking, he a garbage man?” The barber asks. 

“He’s been through hell. He’s my patient, though.” Izzy says. “He’s not my man.” 

“But you’d like him to be.” The other woman says. “I see the way you looking at him like he’s a cherry tree in bloom.” 

“Curtis is a traumatised man. I can’t put that pressure on him. And besides, if I come on to him, our therapy is compromised and he will be removed from my care. And I don’t want that to happen.”

“Yeah, I get it, I would enjoy the eye candy for as long as I could too.” 

Eye candy? Was that what he was now? How dare they? Did he really go from being one sort of a piece of meat to another? 

“I want Curtis to be able to recover. My feelings do not take precedence over his recovery.” He hears Izzy reply.

“You might have qualms, but I don’t. I’m gonna ask your crazy dude out.” The barber woman says. 

“He’s not crazy… “ Izzy tries. 

“Whatever. I am going in.” 

Curtis decides that is a good moment to emerge. 

“Hey, we were just talking about you,” the barber lady says. “I’m Roxie by the way and I was wondering if you’d like to go out for a coffee with me and I’ll show you a bit of the city.”

“Roxie, thank you for the haircut and for your interest, but I will have to say no.” Curtis says, leaving it at that, not qualifying it in any way. 

Then he turns to Izzy: “I am ready if you are too, Doctor.”


	5. Truth Hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izzy and Curtis fight over Izzy's priorities

“When are you going to start physical therapy for your arm?” Izzy asks. “We are ready for you when you are.” 

“There is nothing that can be done for my arm. Stop trying to fix me. I’m just going to be the guy with the lame arm. Or maybe I’ll ask someone to actually cut it off. It gets in the way.” Curtis says, looking out the window from where he was standing. 

He is glad he is facing away from her and she’s sitting somewhere behind him. This way she can’t see the emotions playing on his features. She would see them and not understand. How could she?

She is a good psychiatrist, Curtis admits. She can read him quite well. Scarily so, actually. But she can never know. She hasn’t been on the train. The only horrors in her life are being single and having some construction worker tell her she has a fat ass. 

Having a fat ass is a luxury by Curtis’ standards. He looks at her and sees a pampered pet. A housecat, sheltered from the dangers of the outdoors and rendered powerful against them. She would have not survived long in the tail section. But then again, people like her always weasel their way to the front and the top.

Since he heard the conversation between her and the barber, he’s been angry at her. Not that she sees him as this gilded fucktoy. Curtis knows he’s good looking and the women in this new world he’s been plunged in are extremely vulnerable. They fall before him like flies. The nurses all worship him. Even the men. 

Curtis is angry at his doctor because she gave him up so easily. He would have loved to hear her say, “back off, bitch, he’s mine!”, but instead she used the lame thing with “my feelings matter less than his recovery”. He knows she is looking for a man to share her life with.The nurses talk; Shawna talks even more. So what if he is her patient now? Why won’t she say something and let him know there’s a possibility?! Life is so uncertain - if anyone knows that, it’s Curtis.

He’s pulled out of his ruminations by Izzy’s voice. 

“I’ve seen you use your arm. When you’re determined; when you’re angry or in fight mode.” She says. “You’re using it now.” 

And Curtis is, indeed, using his arm to pluck a few strawberries from the planter Izzy has on the window sill and bring each fruit to his lips. 

“You’re not going to saw your arm off just to prove a point out of spite,” Izzy says calmly. 

Curtis seethes. Why does she have to be so good and see through his crap? She’s the only one guilty for this. They were getting along well before she washed her hands clean of him in front of a total stranger. 

“What’s it to you? You don’t give a fuck about me.” Curtis turns around, accusing, his brows knit. 

“Of course I do, Curtis, you’re my pa-” Izzy tries before Curtis covers the distance between them in two strides and slams her into the wall panel behind her. 

“Do you now,” he growls. “You’re supposed to be honest with me. You’re supposed to be my ally.” 

 

“When have I not been honest with you, Curtis?” Izzy asks, looking up into her patient’s eyes. There is anger there, but there is also pain and fear. All is not lost. Curtis is not having a violent outburst. They are having a breakthrough. Feelings are surfacing. 

“I heard you and the barber woman talk. You told her my therapy being successful matters more to you than me. Did you mean that?” Curtis asks, his voice faltering. 

“Curtis, I do want to see you get better first.” Izzy says. “Of course recovery takes precedence.” 

 

“Over me! How can you be a therapist and not see that you can’t throw a human away like garbage for the sake of your fucking statistic!” Curtis hears his voice falter more and more. “I wished you had chosen me!” 

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and lets go of Izzy, folding back in on himself. 

“Curtis. Please, sit down. Or at least listen to me.” Izzy pleads. 

Curtis returns to the window sill and leans against it, folding his arms. 

“What.” 

“You can’t only look at barber shop small talk and draw conclusions. Your successful recovery means you can have your freedom back. You can be seen as a citizen like everyone else, and not like a mentally ill and severely affected person with no rights. The government officials who oversaw the rescue of the people from the train want to keep the last survivors locked up in research facilities. And they need the smallest proof of instability or violence to get that.”

“Wait. Did you say… last... survivors?” 

Izzy sighs. 

“Yes. Only very few people who were on the train survived. Many had highly infected wounds that were already septic. Many were terminally ill on the inside. Some, a lot, died in the explosion. And a handful were rescued and brought to a few clinics. Most died. Except for three babies. Three women. Two other men. And you. You’re the only train survivor in treatment at this clinic.” 

Curtis slides down the wall, ending up sitting with his back to it, huddled under the window. 

Izzy comes near him and sits down close to him, resting a hand on his knee, something she’s never done before.

“I don’t want you to fall into the hands of another Wilford. So you see, regardless of how attracted I am to you, I need to do my job and give you back your freedom. You’re still young and resilient. You can still live a good life and choose what to do with it. Once you are released from the clinic, you will be assigned a home and be asked to pick a job. Someone will come around to teach you how to do your job. And after you get settled in… you decide how life goes on from then on. And with whom.” 

Curtis considers the young doctor’s words. She is right. He wants to be free more than he wants to be right. Even in this world where he doesn’t know anyone. He must remember to function in a society that moves about at a lazy, sedate pace, away from the nightmare realities of the train.


	6. Alive Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once he gets released from the clinic, Curtis is left to his own devices, to try and reintegrate into society.

Weeks go by and a committee examines Curtis for days, subjecting him to tests and long interviews. At the end, they have no choice but to declare him a free man and to award him citizenship of the community. 

He is given a house outside the city. It has a flower garden in the front and a real big garden in the back. The house is nice, though it needs some minor repairs, and the gardens are overgrown with weeds and tall trees that cast thick shade so nothing grows under them. 

Someone from the city comes and connects his house to the water supply and shows him how to use the solar panels on the roof to get electricity and heat. 

Slowly, Curtis settles in. At first, he sleeps for days and nights in a row, only waking up to relieve himself and to go in town in search of food. They now make these ready to eat vegetable and pasta or rice bowls that he just has to stick in the microwave for five minutes and enjoy. 

He is asked what he would like to work as and he chooses to work on the farm nearby, growing and harvesting the fruit and vegetables that feed the city. After a week of training, he begins waking up before dawn and showing up at work until noon. He has to work hard those six hours, but he has the rest of the day to himself. 

Slowly, with his hands and only the simplest of tools, Curtis digs out the moss covering the soil in his garden. He cuts down some of the trees and the sun can now reach the ground. He buys seeds from a store and plants the back garden with vegetables, and the front one with flowers. 

He’s doing everything he can to stay busy and not think of his time on the train. He was only a boy when he got on the train and he did unimaginable things to survive. Now he’s being asked to act as though that was just a longer party weekend and a really nasty hangover. 

He misses his therapist and her loudmouth friend. At least he’s reached a point where the nightmares stopped and he no longer feels guilt pressing down on him all the time. 

In time, from all the hard work he set out to do, at his job and at home, his body bounces back. He fills out nicely and now muscles stretch his cotton shirts. His skin lost its bluish hue and is no longer flaky. It’s now soft and has a healthy glow. 

Curtis is the healthiest he’s ever been and even his lame arm regained some of its strength. It had to. He retrained it to work and to keep up with his good arm, the old severed and pinched nerve connections having a reason to rebuild and fire up again. 

A year goes by and Curtis has settled in comfortably. He’s kept mostly to himself and he ambitiously learned as much as he could about this new world to be able to fit in. He never knew it and he doubted himself all the time on the train, but he’s a survivor and he adapts so well.

One morning, he walks out of his house and looks at his back garden, and everything is in bloom. The trees lining the even plots of vegetables. The tomato plants, the cucumbers, the beans, the pumpkins. 

At the entrance to the garden, he built two mounds of soil on which flowers now grow. He spread some mixed seeds just for fun a few months ago and now his garden is a paradise of colours and scents. Birds come and sit in the trees, singing their hearts out. 

Curtis stands, watching and crying. The tears roll quietly down his cheeks, catching in his neatly groomed beard. That’s also something he learned how to do himself, not having to visit Roxie. 

At work, he gets promoted and put in charge over others. He has to teach them how to treat the baby plants before and after they are put in the ground, because everything Curtis touches, grows. 

During the warmest weeks of the year, he gets a permit to sell the things he grows in his own garden at the private farmer’s market, where everyone brings what they proudest of.


	7. High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izzy and Curtis meet a year after his therapy ended.

One sunny Sunday, Curtis is handing over some cookies over the edge of his market stand to a little girl and her mum, who’s been buying all sorts of things from Curtis for her daughter just so she could awkwardly flirt with him. 

And that’s when he meets someone familiar. 

Izzy is riding her bicycle and browsing the market stands when she sees Curtis. He sees her and smiles. She blushes and dismounts. 

“Curtis. Hi. You look… well.” She says awkwardly. Just like that, one look and her forgotten desires are brought to life. 

And now Curtis smiles, which is lethal in itself. 

“Izzy.” He acknowledges her. Not using her family name, or “doctor”. He raises an eyebrow. “Just well?” 

It’s appropriate. She’s no longer his therapist. They’re just a man and a woman now. Meeting at a market, separated by his stand, full of cookies, jams, homemade pasta and fresh fruit and vegetables. 

“N-no,” Izzy stammers. With all her training and all her experience, Curtis makes her feel like a little girl. Shy, easily excited and awed. His presence is imposing. Even though he’s been her patient, there’s something about him - a quiet authority, a strength radiating off of him that comes from within, the kind you don’t learn from a textbook. “You look amazing.” 

And then there’s the attraction. Izzy’s been single for so long and she’s defenseless against his potent charms. She noticed right away that he’s put on muscle and gained strength. His khaki trousers and dark blue sweatshirt drape so well over his strong form. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing strong forearms with apparent veins. His hands are clean but slightly callused from the work he does now and Izzy wishes she could feel those hands on her bare skin. Squeezing a bit harder than comfortable; then fingertips, soothing and caressing. 

“Do you make all this stuff now?” she asks. 

“Yes, in my own back yard. I was given a house in the suburb and I transformed the gardens a bit. They make flowers, fruit and vegetables now. I work at the farm too. I’ve been good. Here. Try a cookie.” Curtis says, handing her a jumbo cookie wrapped neatly in a triangular wax paper bag, for easier grabbing. 

“Wow, this smells amazing. Thank you.” Izzy says, amazed beyond words. She is impressed. Curtis has fit in and adapted way past all her predictions. 

“Hey, come around this evening, I’ll be making a fresh batch in a different flavour. And I cook fresh every day. You can stay for dinner.”

“I’d love to.”

Later, at the time they agreed on, she shows up on his doorstep with a bottle of strong and flavourful old rum. 

The place is beautiful and Izzy walks down the path to the back garden, admiring everything and turning to Curtis to praise his hard work. 

It’s then that he closes the distance between them and wraps his arms around her, kissing her with the despair of someone who’s waited too long, but still being gentle. 

Izzy gives in. Nothing else matters beyond this point. Her mind stops working when she undresses Curtis, taking off his shirt at first. She even forgets about her insecurities, her neolithic Venus breasts, her too wide hips, her thick thighs. She just is. 

“Is this what you imagined?” Curtis asks as his mouth travels down her neck and collarbone and lower, to her nipple. He sucks and swirls his tongue around it, switching to the other one. 

He opens his own trousers and drops them, stepping out of them, standing fully naked before Izzy. She gasps. 

She’s never really known what it is like to be overcome with desire. Until now, when she’s watching this man naked before her, his skin tinted a golden glow by the afternoon sun. 

She removes the last of her clothes, and no sooner is she naked than Curtis lays her down on the grass, on top of their clothes spread out among the flowers. 

Curtis is himself not very sure of what he’s doing, but he knows he wants Izzy, wants to wedge himself into her unused cunt and feel her walls squeeze around him. He wants to feel the force of her lust for him, needs to feel real and like the moment, with him in it, has some meaning that made all his ordeal until here make sense somehow. 

She gives him everything, the wet heat of her depths claiming him as hers and locking him in this harmless world of serene work and lazy evenings spent stargazing. 

His fingers dig into the soft flesh of her hips, her ass. Curtis’s hips snap forcefully at an almost brutal pace against her soft mound and he closes his eyes briefly against the obscene slapping sound their bodies make while moving into each other. He leans over, cupping her breasts in his hands and hiding his face between them, kissing each breast and sucking at the nipples, the hair on his belly rubbing against her soft skin.

She moves with him, screaming and moaning her pleasure to the deep red evening skies. It’s soon too much for Curtis and he feels himself go dizzy as he comes hard, the feeling as strange and as overwhelming as it is intense. As soon as he regains control of himself, he notices she’s not quite there and he pulls out, moving down her body and kneeling between her legs, his lips caressing her folds and his tongue spreading her like in a languid kiss before he flattens his tongue and starts licking at her swollen labia. He soon feels her tremble and writhe and he keeps his eyes on her as he sucks her clit into his mouth, his lips massaging it slowly. She comes with a small, hot gush that soaks Curtis’ beard and chest, but he doesn’t care. He returns by her side, wrapping her in his arms and easing her down from her orgasm. 

It’s hours before they finally make it to bed, Curtis already wondering where this kind of stamina comes from. Perhaps it’s from the long years of denying himself even the smallest pleasures on the train. Perhaps it’s from his new, active life spent under the skies more often than under a roof. 

He asks Izzy to stay past that night and, true to his word, he bakes her cookies at 2 am under the moonlight.


	8. Ambrosia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izzy gives Shawna an update

Shawna hasn’t seen Izzy in a few months, having taken time off to be with her family. The next time they meet in the doctors’ lounge, Izzy is eating cake from an XXL plastic container and Shawna walks up to her. 

“Girl, you been naughty while I was gone? Eating cake by the tubs, it’s all gone to your hips and your belly.” 

“I should hope so. I need to put on weight.” Izzy says, grinning. 

“What? No! Get outta here? What happened?!” Shawna says, hyperventilating. 

Izzy shrugs. 

“Curtis.” She says, as though that explains everything. For her, it does. 

“No way! I want details. You move in with him yet?” 

“Yeah, he has a house outside of the city. It’s nice. The commute to work is longer, but… worth it.” 

“Can I feel?” Shawna’s hands are itching. 

“Yes! Tell me what I’m having.” Izzy says, allowing herself to be infected by her friend’s bubbly enthusiasm. 

“Well, twins. Too early to tell what kind, but girl… I feel two heads.” Shawna says. “No doubt.” 

“TWINS?! I’m not ready for that!!!” Izzy has a shock of her own. “I’m not big enough for twins to be in there…?!”

“Don’t you worry. You’ll be bouncing down the stairs to Sound Therapy in no-time. Are you not freaking out with excitement?! Damn! You’ve waited for this for so long! And Curtis is hot.You’ll have pretty kids.” 

“I am excited, but I’m also scared. I don’t like going to the OB and to the midwife, they are more like butchers… the OB called me a stubborn cow at my last ultrasound and *he* wasn’t able to see twins in there. He just said I have a big fat baby just like me. And he’s the only OB in the whole city. What the hell.”

“I haven’t gone to him after my first kid. Had my other ones at home. Alone, because Rick passes out when he sees blood.” 

“You really gotta teach me stuff. I don’t wanna go to this guy. He’ll probably shove one of the babies back inside so it doesn’t turn out he wasn’t able to interpret an ultrasound.” 

“I got you. But Ima need to have a chat with your boo too.”


	9. Rapture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heavens smile upon Curtis

Izzy does get pretty big and Curtis watches her closely, not letting her do anything around the house. He can’t keep his hands off her, and mostly she’s up for everything he comes up with, only sometimes the belly gets in the way. 

On the day when the babies decide to come, she refuses to let him take her to the doctor and runs to the garden instead. 

Curtis figures it’s best not to antagonize her at that delicate time and asks her how he can help. He’s surprised how calm and in control he remains.

Izzy paces up and down the tile path, yelling and crouching now and then, holding her poor back and complaining all the time about how much it all hurts. 

Curtis rushes inside to get towels, warm water and everything else Shawna said they’d need, and by the time he comes back out, he sees Izzy down on her side on the grass. The first baby comes out while Izzy pushes, huffing and cursing all through it. Curtis knows it helps with the pain and staying focused so he says nothing, taking care of the baby once it’s safely out, cleaning her and wrapping her in a soft, warm cotton cloth. 

Life surprises them anew and, despite everyone’s predictions, Izzy gives birth to three identical little girls. They’re small, but healthy and they have all their fingers and toes. Izzy is laughing like a maniac, looking at the three girls in disbelief, exhausted but happy. 

Curtis can only cry softly. This shook him to his core. How merciful the powers above have been, allowing him to help bring life into the world instead of stifling it. He feels a bit redeemed. He knows that what he did in the past will always weigh heavily in the balance of his sins, but now he feels he was given the chance to do something good in compensation. 

Wasting no time, he cleans the three newborns and brings them close to Izzy, crowding them on her chest and going behind her to wrap his family in his arms. They are both covered in blood and exhausted, but they feel like they are floating. 

Izzy lets Curtis decide the names of the girls and he names them Venus, Diana and Minerva. His three little goddesses, he explains, and Izzy is his Juno, because she lit the fire in a hearth he long thought abandoned into ruin.


	10. Collision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Extra chapter for my AO3 readers!

“Curtis, Curtis, you’re talking in your sleep.” Edgar pokes at him. “I lost track of what you were saying… Who’s Izzy?” 

Curtis shakes sleep off and sits up in his bunk. He knew someone called Izzy once... if he could only remember who she was. Maybe she was one of the first to die on the train. Perhaps by Curtis’ own hand. 

He reaches in his inner jacket pocket and he feels the thin chain and the name-shaped pendant. He squeezes it into his fist but he still doesn’t remember.

“What’s the plan, Curtis? What do we do today?” Edgar asks. 

“Today we take the train. And then finally I can go back to sleep.”

(end)


End file.
